Fernando Tatis Jr.

On Saturday in San Diego, Fernando Tatis Jr. was a timely blow aside from thriving, as the explosion rate in the seventh innings of three innings expanded a 2-1 lead and helped Padres get a much-needed victory. These eyes are particularly interested in that, no doubt, Homer is Tatis’ first fact since May 27, ending the longest drought of his career.

The 26-year-old Slugger is connected to Royals’ Taylor Clarke’s relative to a 96-mph settlement plate. It stands out from the bats at 107.9 mph, but the estimated distance is 380 feet:

“It’s heavy,” Tatis said of his 21-game winning streak. “Everyone knows, I know, how long it’s been. I’m just grinding.”

Tatis’s efforts to resume hitting Dingers did not help him get hit three times in 10 days against the Dodgers, part of the ongoing hostilities between two NL Western opponents. At the end of the final, Dodgers rescuer Jack Little hit Tatis on the right wrist in the ninth inning of the June 19 game. Both the bench and the bullpen were cleared, and managers Mike Shildt and Dave Roberts had to separate:

Both managers received a single game and fine, while Padres’ rescuer Robert Suarez hit Shohei Ohtani at the bottom of the ninth inning (the second of the second superstars in the series were stuffed with three games in the same frame. Tatis had to leave the game for an X-ray and follow-up scan, and thankfully he didn’t break any bones (Rattlers’ Corbin Carroll wasn’t that lucky for his recent HBP).

“Not for me [intentional]Tatis later said. He later said he had “spent a long morning in the hospital” but he “must dodges bullets.”

“It puts the bones on my wrist. It’s a subtle area.” “I’m glad I didn’t break any bones, I’m glad I was able to stay on the field.”

Back to home runs, Tatis has never played 18 games in his six-season career and hasn’t played until the season, although he did have a relatively long winning streak in late April and early May:

In the grand plan, 21 consecutive wins are not much. Nico Hoerner has not played Homer this year yet, finding 30 seasons of All-Stars in their resume and winning streak, including this year’s Tatis, including Michael Condeto (41 games), Freddie Freeman, Freddie Freeman (36 and Earl), Jock Pederson (33), Joc Pederson (33), Salvad Pels (33) Goldschmidt (27). Padrez teammate Xander Bogaerts himself had a separate unstripping streak of 30 and 28 games, while Tatis left the same game with an extension.

In the 9th inning that lost to the Nationals 10-6 on Monday night, including two other three hits, Tatis hit a team-high 15 home runs, but his total load was quite ahead and group. He won eight games in his first 21 games, left unlisted in the next 14 games, rebounded with four home runs in eight games, hit one in 29 games, including a prolonged drought, and now docked twice in the last three games. Through all of this, his production is more or less consistent with last year’s production, despite the improved 3-point and walking rate, lower BABIP and ISO, and better defensive metrics, that he has surpassed last year’s war:

Tatis has been batting but has not yet achieved positive results from his contact quality. Here is his monthly breakdown in some of the traditional and Statcast categories:

Tatis was fanatical in March and April, but even then he was 78 points lower than his expected shooting percentage, which was the average launch angle of only three degrees. His ground ball rate was 54.7% that month (for the momentum). He was cold in May but got better contact in June. Even so, the gap between his actual and expected percentage play has almost doubled. Such gaps are not uncommon, especially for those who work in offensive petco parks; this year the entire league plays there.369, while the XSLG is .408. Tatis has reached .237/.383/.289 in 21 games of the last two home runs, but has produced .275 XBA and .420 XSLG in that time.

Because Tatis’ exit at 93.8 mph Velo was in the 96th percentile when he hit the ball, while his 52.6% hard hit rate in the 92nd percentile was his 12.4% barrel rate, which was only 74%, down from 92% (14.5%) last year. This is with his spike reaching a career-high 50.4% ground ball rate, four percentage points higher than last year:

There were a lot of things happening on that table. Note that first, on a seasonal basis, Tatis hit more ground balls than in recent years and lowered them, especially in the air. Recently, he has slowed down the ground ball, but has somehow offset this by hitting more popups and pulling the ball with less frequency. The problem is that if the ball hits the ball directly (to the deepest part of the court) instead of hitting the corner, it is unlikely that the ball in the air will come out.

Tatis is notorious for tinkering with his own settings and stance. Here is a static April 14 multi-screen Instagram post from MLB Network:

If you follow the link to the position, you’ll see clips from MLBN analyst Mark DeRosa pointing out how Tatis has been increasingly open to his stance in his career, how he has wrapped the bats more than last season, and how he got rid of leg kicks…but this clip was clipped two months and two men before airing two months and two savages’ struggles. “If he goes south, don’t be shocked if you don’t kick your legs well in July,” De Rosa said. Tatis seems to bring back the kick after the first unworkable spell. Here is his super stock of five home runs before May 10-27:

Kicking there, though not for those last home runs, the 435-foot man at Zach Brzykcy of Washington was absent on Monday night:

Comparison of tatis hitting stance data for the three seasons we provide shows that he has grown from 14 degrees (late 2023) to 29 degrees (2024) to 45 degrees, but there are some changes in these seasons. In July 2023, his position opened at 16 degrees, but by September/October, his position dropped to 11 degrees. Last year, his range opened from May 27 to June 31, before being occupied by the pressure response of the right femur and in September after returning. This year, Tatis rose from its opening position of 52 degrees in March/April to 45 degrees in May to 35 degrees in June, with the distance between feet increasing from 20.9 inches to 22.6:24.9:

Compared to last year, Tatis’ average bat velocity has decreased (from 74.7 mph to 73.6), his attack angle has flattened (from 10 degrees to 7 degrees), but once a month, his speed and angle have increased, while his tendency has decreased and his attack direction has changed:

This is more than I could say in the early stages of understanding swing tracking, but in a recent post Baseball prospectus Matthew Trueblood gathers the attack angle and the attack direction goes into 36 different buckets, and I noticed that Tatis’ average combination (attack angle 5-10 degrees, slight OPPO direction) lands him with one of the lowest (.250) (.250) (.250) in the bucket:

A closer look at the data shows that when Tatis (attack angles against all his swings this year) range from 30 degrees to -74, it is a good reminder that these are average value We are discussing – his output this year has dropped compared to the past two in the ball in the 5-10-degree attack angle range:

Within a narrow angle range, Tatis hit the ground ball in 45.3% of the game, consistent with 2023, but rose from 33.8% last year, with poor results despite much higher average exit speeds (.092 Woba vs. .210 Woba) (93 mph vs. 88.7).

I was reluctant to be too delicate at this stage, but given what we observed about his position, kicking and playing angles, I think it’s possible to say Tatis is still looking for the best swing, partly because his results are not working hard because of the quality of his contact. What he has is still better than most players – he ranks 17th in the WRC+ league and 5th in the war, but like any star, he is driven to progress, and that’s part of what makes him great.